Good Time to be a Girl

Helena Morrissey is one of the best-known women in the City. She started her career in New York with Schroder Capital Management. After returning to London she joined Newton in 1994 as a junior fund manager and was appointed CEO in 2001. During her fifteen years leading the firm, assets under management grew from £20 billion to over £50 billion. Helena is now Chair of the Investment Association, the UK’s industry trade body whose members manage more than £5 trillion and Head of Personal Investing at Legal and General Management, a new role aimed at engaging the nation to save and invest more.In 2010, Helena founded the 30% Club, a cross-business initiative to achieve better gender-balanced UK company boards. The 30% Club now leads efforts which span the whole career journey from schoolroom to boardroom and the proportion of female directors on UK listed company boards has more than doubled. The 30% Club approach has been adopted internationally, including in the US, Hong Kong, Ireland, Italy, South Africa, Australia, Canada, Malaysia and the Gulf Co-Operation Countries. Helena also chairs Business in the Community’s gender equality campaign, part of the Prince of Wales’ Responsible Business network.Helena has been named one of Fortune Magazine’s World’s 50 Greatest Leaders. She has twice been voted one of the 50 Most Influential People in Finance globally by Bloomberg Markets. Helena is a regular media commentator on topics as wide-ranging as climate change, executive pay and Brexit. Her well-received guest edit of the ‘Today’ programme in December 2016 developed the theme of ‘power to the people’ and featured contributions from Michael Gove, John Macfarlane and Michael Lewis. Helena is a Fellow of London Business School and was awarded an Honorary Doctorate by Cambridge University in 2016. She was appointed CBE in the 2012 New Year’s Honours list for her contribution to the role of women in business. In 2017, she was made a dame.A Cambridge philosophy graduate, Helena is married to a Buddhist meditation teacher and they have nine children, six girls and three boys whose ages range from 8 to 26.

‘Morrissey is unusual and her book is essentially about why that is a good thing; why people who don’t fit the mould should be valued for that, rather than forced to conform … a refreshing change from the niggling cult of female self-improvement, which starts from the premise that women are probably doing it all wrong’ Gaby Hinsliff, Observer‘A manifesto for career-minded women’ Sarah Baxter, Sunday Times‘What supplies extra authority is where Morrissey is coming from – someone who has reached the summit and who did so while being mother to nine children. All credit to her. Onwards and upwards’ Evening Standard‘Ms Morrissey’s tone is helpful in the increasingly irascible debate on gender equality … worth listening to’ Financial Times‘A heartfelt manifesto for a more humane and inclusive form of capitalism’ Ruth Sunderland, Mail On Sunday‘Morrissey is a suffragist like Millicent Fawcett, convinced that patient social reform can be brought by good women, and men’ Allison Pearson, Daily Telegraph‘She makes a great case for ditching the dither, fixing your eyes on the prize, and asking for help where needed and promotion where desired too… I loved her positivity and push for collective female focus’ Helen Brown, Daily Mail